ESS

by the roya.ist troops; the number of adherents however had been exaggerated, his expectations were disappointed, and as he was completely hemmed in by his pursuers, the scarcity of provisions began to be severely felt. At this crisis the king proposed a treaty; but Essex had no authority to make any agreement without the sanction of his parliamentary masters; and as the royalists, finding that he did not comply with the king's offer, continued to press their advantage, after some of his troops had abandoned him, he was obliged to escape by sea from Fowey. Having sailed from Plymouth to London, he once more collected an army, and was placed at its head, but an illness compelled him to quit his command. When he returned to London he found a state of confusion and distrust that scarce could be exceeded. At a meeting held at his house it was proposed to impeach Cromwell, but this served no other purpose than to irritate that leader. The independents soon afterwards succeeded in carrying the selfdenying ordinance,' which forbad members of either house of parliament to hold any command in the army: thus Essex ceased to be parliamentary general. It was voted that for his services he should be raised to the rank of a duke, and be granted a pension of 10,000l. a year. He did not however live to enjoy these honours, being carried off by a sudden and violent illness in the fifty-fifth year of his age. He was publicly interred in Westminster Abbey.

37

Essoign day of the Term. The first return day in every term was, properly speaking, the first day of the term (until essoigns were no longer allowed to be cast in personal actions), and on that day the courts sat to take essoigns or excuses from such as did not appear to the summons or the writ; wherefore it was called the essoign day.

The essoign or general return day is now regulated by 1 William IV., chap. 3, which enacts That all writs usually returnable before any of his majesty's courts of King's Bench, Common Pleas, or Exchequer, respectively, on general return days, may be made returnable on the third day exclusive, before the commencement of each term, or on any day, not being Sunday, between that day and the third day exclusive before the last day of the term; and the day for appearance shall, as heretofore, be the third day after such term.' ESTATE, in law, signifies that title or interest which a man has in lands, tenements, hereditaments, or other effects. It is either real, comprising lands, tenements, and hereditaments held or enjoyed for an estate of freehold; or personal, comprising interests for terms of years in lands, tenements, and hereditaments, and property of every other description. Personal estate [CHATTELS] goes to the executors, and is primarily liable for payment of debts.

Real estate may be considered under three heads :-(1) the quantity of estate, . e., the amount of interest in the owner; (2) the time when that interest is to commence; and (3) the quality of estate, or the mode in which it is to be enjoyed.

1. All real estates not being of copyhold tenure [COPYHOLD], or what are called customary freeholds, are either The former may be of freehold or less than freehold. divided into two kinds; freeholds of inheritance, and freeholds not of inheritance. Freeholds of inheritance admit of a further subdivision, into inheritances absolute, called fees simple, and inheritances limited, called qualified or base fees, and fees conditional. A freehold of inheritance absolute or fee simple is the largest estate which the law allows to a subject; the owner may freely dispose of it to whom he pleases in his lifetime by deed or by will, and if he dies without making any disposition, it descends to such of his kindred as the law marks out as his heir.

The chief defects in his character were indecision and vacillation; when he erred it was more from want of judgment than from bad intention. His bearing was always At his manly, and his courage has never been impeached. death the title became extinct. (Hume's History of England; Biographia Britannica; Biographie Universelle.) ESSLINGEN, the seat of provincial government for the Würtemberg province of the Neckar, as well as for the bailiwic of Esslingen, lies in a fine and fertile country on the banks of the Neckar, surrounded by heights crowned with forests and vineyards, in 48° 44' N. lat., and 9° 19' E. long. It is an old town, and was a free city of the German empire, and the favourite residence of some of the emperors. The inner town has massive walls and towers round it; and the five suburbs, one of which stands on an island in the river, while another is attached to the old burg which lies upon a hill, are also protected by stout walls. It has five churches, that of St. Mary being distinguished by its fine Gothic spire, a handsome town-hall, an hospital richly endowed with the property of some suppressed religious houses, a high school, the head seminary of the kingdom for educating teachers, an orphan asylum, several elementary schools, and A conditional fee at common law was a fee restrained to a population of about 6250, of whom about 100 are Roman Catholics and 100 Jews. Esslingen has manufactures of some particular heirs exclusive of others, as to a man and woollens, cotton and woollen yarns, wine, lackered iron and the heirs male of his body, by which limitation his lineal tin ware, paper, &c., and a good trade in agricultural heirs female and collaterals were excluded; and this is the produce. The parish of Esslingen comprises the well-origin of estates tail. It was held that if the donce, in the known Esslingen-Gebiet, a succession of hamlets scattered along the heights between the town and Rothenberg, and carried up to the very summit of the range.

ESSLINGEN, or ESSLING, is likewise the name of a small village of about 280 inhabitants, in the circle of the Lower Mannhartsberg, in Lower Austria, about seven miles east of Vienna. It is connected by historical recollections with the adjacent village of Aspern which lies to the west of it. The ground between these two places was the scene of a severe conflict between the French under Napoleon, and the Austrians, which begun on the 21st and terminated on the 22nd of May, 1809, when the latter remained in possession of Aspern, and the former of Esslingen. By the Austrians the conflict was therefore called that of Aspern; but by the French that of Essling, from which village Marshal Massena covered the retreat of Napoleon's forces, and afterwards derived the ducal title bestowed upon him by the French emperor.

A qualified or base fee has some qualification or limit annexed, which may determine the estate, as in the inWhenever A or his heirs cease to be tenants of stance of a grant to A and his heirs tenants of the manor of Dale. that manor, their estate is entirely determined, though during its continuance the proprictor has the same rights and privileges as if he were absolute tenant in fee simple.

case supposed, had no heirs male of his body, or if, after a
male child was born, no alienation were made, the land
should revert to the donor on the failure of heirs male of
the donee's body in fact, for all purposes of alienation
it was a fee simple, on condition that the donee had
male issue; for it is a rule of law, that when any condition
is performed it is thenceforth entirely gone, and the thing
to which it was annexed becomes absolutely and wholly
unconditional. The nobility however, being anxious to pre-
serve their estates in their own families, procured the Stat.
Westm. the Second, 13 Ed. I., c. 1, commonly called the
Statute de Donis Conditionalibus, to be made, which
enacted that the will of the donor should be observed,
and that the land should go to the heirs specified, if there
were any, or if none, should revert to the donor. Thus
the donor acquired an estate in reversion, which could only
be allowed, consistently with the nature of estates in rever-
sion, by considering the conditional fee to be changed into a

ESSOIGNS, Latin Essonium, French Essoigne, or Ex-limited, or, as it is called in technical language, a particular oine (apparently from the Latin Exonerare, to exonerate, but see Du Cange, in voc. Sunnis), is the allegation of an excuse for non-appearance by a person summoned to answer an action at law, or to perform service at a court baron. There were various causes of excuse, such as illness, falling among thieves, floods, &c.

A party might essoign himself three times by sending a substitute to explain the reasons for his non-appearances, and it formerly served as an imparlance or a craving for a longer time by a defendant to make answer in real and mixed actions

estate. This kind of estate was called an estate tail, from the word talliare, to cut, being as it were a portion of the whole fee. Means were soon however discovered by the ingenuity of the lawyers to enable the donee and his heirs of the specified description to cut off the entail, as it was called. [CONVEYANCE, FINE, RECOVERY.]

A freehold, not of inheritance, is an estate which the owner has for his own life only, or the life of some other person, or until the happening of some uncertain event. The following are instances:-A gift to A until B returns from Rome; but if the gift had been to A and his heirs

until B returns from Rome, the estate would have been a qualified or base fee; and if B had died without returning from Rome, would have become a fee simple absolute. Some freeholds not of inheritance, arise from operation of law, as tenant in tail after possibility of issue extinct, which is where an estate is limited to A and the heirs of his body to be begotten on the body of B his wife, which is called an estate tail special (as distinguished from an estate tail general, i.e. to A and the heirs of his body, without specifying the woman from whom they must spring). If B dies without children, A is no longer tenant in tail, but tenant in tail after possibility of issue extinct, and is regarded by the law, as to the duration of his estate, as simple tenant for life. As to tenant by courtesy and tenant in dower, see COURTESY and DOWER.

Of estates less than freehold there are three kindsestates for years, at will, and by sufferance. An estate for years (which includes an estate from year to year) is personal property, and, like other chattels [CHATTELS], upon the death of the owner, without having disposed of it in his lifetime, devolves upon his executors or administrators. An estate at will arises where a man lets lands to another expressly at the will of both parties or without limiting any certain estate; either party may put an end to the tenancy, though, for the sake of general convenience, the courts strive to construe them as tenancies from year to year, for the purpose of rendering a six months' notice necessary to their determination. An estate by sufferance arises where a tenant, who has entered by lawful title, continues in possession after his interest has determined: this estate may be put an end to at any time by the lawful owner, though, after acceptance of rent, the law would consider it as a tenancy from year to year, as in the case of a tenancy at will.

Estates are also legal or equitable. It is a legal estate when the owner is in the actual seisin or possession, and also entitled to the beneficial interest himself or in trust for some other person. An equitable estate is when some other person, not the person who is the actual and legal owner, is entitled to the beneficial interest of the property of which that other is in possession. The power of the beneficial owner over his equitable estate is as complete as if he were possessed of the legal estate. [TRUST; EQUITY] ESTE, HOUSE OF, one of the oldest historical families of modern Europe, and the oldest among those which have retained sovereign power to the present time, the house of! Savoy perhaps excepted. Some chronologists, such as Pigna, have endeavoured to trace back the genealogy of the house of Este to the fifth century of our æra, when we find the names of Atius, Aurelius, and Tiberius mentioned as princes of Este, Vicenza, and Feltre. But to pretend to ascertain the lineal succession of these princes down to the ninth century is a matter at least very dubious. The more sober and judicious Muratori, in his Antichità Estensi,' has traced the ancestry of the Este to the dukes and marquises who governed Tuscany as a great imperial fief under the Carlovingian_emperors, and who were probably, like most other great Italian feudatories at that time, of Longbard origin. Some old chroniclers, such as Mario Equicola, in his History of Mantua,' state positively that they were Longobards, and related to the Longobard dukes of Spoleto. The succession, however, of these marquises or dukes, among whom are registered two of the name of Adalbert, in the ninth century, is not clearly ascertained until we come to another Adalbert, who is styled marquis, but of whom little is known, and who died about A.D. 917. He left, however, two sons, Guido and Lamberto, who were stripped of their fiefs by Hugo and Lotharius, kings of Italy. A son or nephew of either Guido or Lamberto, named Oberto, took the part of Berengarius II., who was possessed, either by inheritance or through the favour of Berengarius, of several fiefs in Tuscany and Lunigiana Being afterwards dissatisfied with the conduct of Berengarius, he was one of the Italian nobles who repaired to Otho of Saxony to offer him the crown of Italy. Otho, on his exaltation, appointed Oberto comes sacri palatii, which was one of the first dignities of the kingdom, and gave him in marriage his daughter Alda. Oberto died about the year 972, leaving two sons, Adalbert and Oberto II, the latter of whom was lord of Lunigiana and of the county of Obertengo in Tuscany. Oberto took the part of Hardouin, marquis of Ivrea, against Henry of Bavaria, for the crown of Italy Oberto died about 1014, and was succeeded by his son, Alberto Azzo I., who in his turn was succeeded by his son Alberto Azzo or Albertazzo II. This Albertazzo, besides his paternal fiefs of Lunigiana and Tuscany, inherited also from his uncle Ugo the fiefs of Este, Rovigo, and Casamaggiore, in Lombardy. In the year 1045 he was appointed by the emperor Henry III. count and governor of Milan; and soon after he married Kunitza, or Cunegonda, of the great German house of Welf, and sister to Welf III, on whom the Emperor Henry had bestowed the duchy of Carinthia and the march of Verona. Welf III, dying without issue, his inheritance fell to his sister's eldest son by Albertazzo, who took the name of Welf IV. This Wef IV. was made duke of Bavaria about 1070, and from him the line of Brunswick and Hanover, known also by the name of Este-Guelphs, is descended.

Neither of these two last estates confers any power of alienation. All these estates, real and personal, freehold or less than freehold, freeholds of inheritance or not of in-elected king of Italy about A.D. 950; and this Oberto was heritance, may become subject to another qualification, and be called estates upon condition, being such whose existence depends upon the happening or not happening of some uncertain event whereby the estate may be either originally created or enlarged or finally defeated. [CONDITION; MORTGAGE.]

2. Estates are either in possession or in expectancy. The former kind of estate requires no explanation here. The latter, involving some of the nicest and most abstruse learning in English law, are divided into estates in remainder and reversion, and by executory devise or bequest; and again, remainders are divided into estates in remainder vested or contingent. [REMAINDER; REVERSION.] An executory devise or bequest is such a limitation of a future estate or interest in lands or chattels as the law admits in the case of a will, though contrary to the rules of limitation in conveyances at common law. It is only an indulgence allowed to a man's last will and testament, where otherwise the words of the will would be void; for wherever a future interest is so limited by a will as to fall within the rules laid down for the limitation of contingent remainders, such an interest is not an executory devise, but a contingent remainder. [WILL.]

3. Estates may be enjoyed in four ways; in severalty, in joint tenancy, in coparcenary, and in common.

An estate in severalty is when one tenant holds it in his own right without any other person being joined with him. An estate in joint tenancy is when an estate is granted to two or more persons at the same time, in which case the law construes them to be joint tenants unless the words of the grant expressly exclude such construction; they have unity of interest, of title, of time of vesting, and of possession, and upon the decease of one, his whole interest, unless disposed of by him in his lifetime, remains to the survivor or

survivors.

An estate in coparcenary is when an estate of inheritance descends from the ancestor to two or more persons, who are called parceners, and amongst parceners there is no survivorship.

An estate in common is when two or more persons hold property, by distinct titles and for different interests, but by unity of possession.

All these three last-mentioned modes of joint and undivided possession may be put an end to by the parties interested, either by prescribed modes of conveyance or by partition, [PARTITION.]

Albertazzo having lost his German wife, married Gansenda, countess of Maine in France, by whom he had two sons, Folco and Hugo. To Folco he left his Italian estates. and Hugo inherited the French property of his mother, namely, the county of Maine, which he afterwards sold Hugo married a daughter of Robert Guiscard, the conqueror of Naples, and died without issue. Muratori trascribes a diploma of the emperor Henry IV., dated in 1077, confirming the possessions of the Italian fiefs to Hug and Folco, sons of the marquis Azzo of Este. Folco after his father's death was sued by his half-brother Welf for a share of his paternal inheritance; but after a long contention, an arrangement was made by which Folco retained the greater part of the Italian estates, including the fief of Este. Folco died in 1135, and his son Obizzo succeeded him. Like his father, he assumed the title of marquis of Este, from the town of that name, by which his house was designated ever after. The town of Este, built near

Massa and Carrara, of which his grandmother, of the house of Cibo Malaspina, was the heiress. [CARRARA; MODENA.] ESTELLA (NAVARRE.]

vo Francis I. was not much better than his father. He affected a great zeal for religion, had his food scrupulously weighed on fast days, and he sentenced a relative of Marshal Gassion to be shot for want of proper respect while at ESTHER, The Book of, a canonical and historical book church. He first separated the Jews from the rest of the of the Old Testament, placed after that of Nehemiah, population at Modena in 1630, and confined them to the but coming chronologically between the 6th and 7th chapGhetto. He began the magnificent ducal palace at Mo-ters of Ezra. It is thus denominated from the Persian name dena as well as the country residence and gardens at Sas- of the Jewish woman, Hadassah, whose history it relates. suolo. His successor, Alfonso IV., received in 1660 of the She was an orphan niece and adopted daughter of Moremperor Leopold the investiture of the principality of Cor- decai, from a Benjamite family of the Babylonian captives reggio, which he had previously purchased. Alfonso loved of Nebuchadnezzar (ii. 5-7). The scene of the narration is the fine arts, and he was the founder of the Este gallery of in the city Shusan, or Susa, now Sus (not Shuster, as stated paintings. He left at his death a son two years old, who by Dr. Adam Clarke-see Trans. Geog. Soc., vol. iii.), which, was afterwards duke by the name of Francis II. During throughout the book, is in English mistranslated Shushan his minority his mother, Laura Martinozzi, Cardinal Maza- the palace, though, in the Septuagint version, it is rightly rin's niece, held the government. She collected together iv Zovoo Ty Tóλe, that is, in Susa the city.' Augustin, all the bad characters in her dominions, and delivered them Epiphanius, and Isidore supposed the author to have been over to the Venetians, who employed them in the war of Ezra. Eusebius assigns a later date. Some writers have Candia against the Turks. Francis II. founded the uni- attributed it to the high priest Joachim; others believe i versity of Modena as well as the splendid library called to have been composed by the Jewish synagogue, to when Estense, of which Zaccaria, Muratori, and Tiraboschi were Esther and Mordecai wrote (ix. 20-29); but by the greater successively librarians. Francis II. dying in 1694 without number Mordecai himself is thought to be the author, and issue, was succeeded by his uncle, Cardinal Rinaldo, who, Elias Levita, in his Mass. Hamum, asserts this to be a fact after resigning his hat, married a daughter of the Duke unquestionable. The original, according to Dr. Adam Clarke, of Brunswick Lunenburg, and sister-in-law to the em- was probably written in the language of antient Persia peror Joseph I. By this marriage the two branches of St. Hieronymus and several other fathers regarded this Este and Brunswick, which had been separated since 1070, book as wholly uncanonical, because the name of God o became again connected. During the war of the Spanish religion is not once mentioned or alluded to, and they have succession, the Duke Rinaldo, notwithstanding his pro- been followed by some modern writers, as Cajetan and De fessed neutrality, was obliged by the French to quit Modena Lyra; but the Council of Trent pronounced it to be wholly and to take shelter at Rome. The victorious Austrians, canonical; and while the Protestant churches admit inf commanded by Prince Eugene of Savoy, restored him to his the canon only what is found in the Hebrew copies, that is dominions, where he resided quietly till 1733, when the as far as to the end of the third verse of chap. x., the Greek | war for the succession to the crown of Poland, in which and Roman churches use as canonical the Greek version Italy had no concern whatever, but for which Italy was as and Latin Vulgate, which contain each ten more verses of usual devastated by the belligerents, obliged Rinaldo again chap. x. and six additional chapters. By the Jews the book to leave his territories, which became the theatre of war has been always considered as one of the most precious c between the French and Piedmontese on one side, and the their sacred scriptures, and as a perfectly authentic history Austrians on the other. In 1736 Rinaldo returned to Mo- of real events which took place about B.c. 519. They call dena. His repeated misfortunes affected and perhaps im- Megilah, that is, The Volume, and hold it in the proved his disposition: he became serious and economi- highest estimation; believing that whatever destruction cal after having been inclined to pomp and magnificence. may happen to the other scriptures, Esther and the PentaHe enlarged his dominions by the purchase of the duchy of teuch will always be preserved by a particular Providence Mirandola and the county of Bagnolo. Rinaldo was suc- Copies exist in the Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldaic, Greek, ant ceeded in 1537 by his son Francis III., who was serving in Latin; each of which widely differs from the others, and a Hungary against the Turks at the time. During the war especially the Greek and Chaldaic, are greatly different from of the Austrian succession he took part for the house of the Hebrew. The Chaldaic text contains five times more Bourbon, and commanded the Spanish armies in Italy. than the Hebrew, and a notice of the various readings wou'd The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle restored him to the quiet fill a large volume. (See the London Polyglot Bible.) Con possession of his dominions. In 1754 Duke Francis was mentators differ much in determining to which of the Perappointed by Maria Theresa governor of Lombardy during sian and Median kings belongs the name of Ahasuera the minority of her son the Archduke Ferdinand, who was whose kingdom extended from India to Ethiopia over 127 betrothed to the duke's grand-daughter Beatrice d'Este, a provinces (i. 1). Some suppose him to be Darius Hystas child then four years old. In 1771 Francis gave up his pes. Scaliger and Jahn say Xerxes. By Capellus he trust to the Archduke Ferdinand, but continued to reside in identified with Ochus, and by Archbishop Usher with DaLombardy, and died at Varese in 1780. His son Ercole rius the son of Hystaspes. Dean Prideaux and Dr. Adaz Rinaldo, the father of Beatrice, succeeded him as duke of Clarke with greater probability take him to be Artaxerxes. Modena. His administration was peaceful and economical. who received the cognomen of Longimanus, or Longhande He was ever watchful against the temporal interference The following is a brief abstract of the book of Esther in the of the court of Rome in his dominions; and he was words of the text. This monarch (chap. i.), after having en equally averse to the remains of feudality which still tertained all his nobles and princes with sumptuous fesivny lingered in his states. When the French entered Italy in during more than six months, gave a great feast in his palace 1796, the duke made a convention with Bonaparte, paid garden to all the men of Susa, great and small, while tt: a heavy contribution, gave up some valuable paintings, but women were separately feasted by the queen in the roya not trusting to the faith of the conqueror, he withdrew to house. To the men royal wine was supplied in abundance, Venice with his treasures, leaving a council of regency at and the drinking was according to every man's pleasure: Modena. An insurrection excited at Reggio by some when, the king being, on the seventh day, merry with wine. Corsican soldiers in the French service afforded a pretext sent his seven chamberlains with orders to bring the queer to Bonaparte to violate the convention, and to occupy the to exhibit herself (the Talmud says naked) before his guests, states of Modena, which were afterwards annexed to the but Vashti (which in Persian means the beautifully fair Cisalpine republic. (Botta, Storia d'Italia; Paradisi, Let-refusing to come, he was very wroth, and his anger burned tere a Carlo Botta.) When in the following year the within him. Ahasuerus however punished her by degrada French occupied Venice, the duke had escaped to Trieste, tion and banishment, and by his royal mandate letters were but a deposit of 200,000 sequins which he had left behind despatched to the people of each province, decreeing that was seized. Ercole Rinaldo died in the Austrian States in every man bear rule in his own house. To furnish the roval 1803. His daughter Maria Beatrice, the last offspring of harem with the greatest means of choice there was mar the house of Este, lost her husband, the Archduke Ferdi- throughout the empire (ch. ii.) a general levy of the faires nand of Austria, in the year 1800, and their eldest son, virgins, and Esther, the beautiful young Jewess, being preFrancis IV., was restored by the peace of Paris in 1814 to ferred by Hege, the keeper of the king's women, before the dominions of his maternal ancestors, namely, the duchy others of the numerous assemblage, she succeeded to th: of Modena, Reggio, and their dependencies, including the place of the banished queen Vashti. The twelve months district of Garfagnana, on the borders of Lucca. By the cosmetical purification of the maidens previous to their addeath of his mother he has also inherited the duchy of mission to the king (ver. 12) was required, says Dr. Clarke